Police Protection Is for Everyone

How did the idea
that everyone living in America, whether they’re U.S. citizens or not, should
be protected by the police ever become controversial? That has always been
the job description of police in democracies. Our police don’t require victims
of crimes to show their papers before they provide assistance or open an
investigation.

So why do Milwaukee
activists suddenly fear local officials may be caving in to the anti-immigrant
policies of Donald Trump and his racially tone-deaf U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff
Sessions to sic local police on minority residents suspected of violating
federal immigration laws?

The source of the
current anxiety over policing is some very bad people who have gained power
nationally.

At a time when major
urban police departments, including Milwaukee’s, are finally taking steps to
improve police accountability with body cameras and better training, Trump and
Sessions are doing everything possible to sabotage reforms and preserve the unequal,
racially biased policing of the past.

But local officials
including Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and Police Chief Ed Flynn really do know
better. They publicly oppose the Trump administration’s hateful policies of
harassing and intimidating immigrants because they know their job is to make
life in their city safer for every resident.

“The city’s policy
has been and will continue to be that it does not enforce immigration laws,”
said Jeff Fleming, Mayor Barrett's spokesman. “Milwaukee police officers will not ask for documentation
that may reveal immigration status during police operations.”

Flynn was even more
graphic in criticizing Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke for volunteering
his county deputies for federal training in tracking and detaining undocumented
immigrants when Clarke was sucking up to Trump for a job. Flynn said the job of
law enforcement “is to protect and serve the residents of our community. And
you can't do that if you're terrifying them and trying to round them up.”

Subtle Changes in Milwaukee’s
Response?

So if Barrett and
Flynn believe what they say, what’s the controversy over some subtle changes in
the wording of police policy? The kindest explanation is they were just some
cowardly, bureaucratic, weasel words written by a lawyer to fend off a baseless
threat to federal funding.

There’s nothing like
threatening to cut off federal funds to panic already hard-pressed,
under-funded urban governments, especially in Wisconsin where the Milwaukee
area’s portion of shared state revenue continues to evaporate into the Walker
ether.

Days after his
inauguration, Trump signed an executive order threatening to strip federal
funding from cities that refused to cooperate with federal immigration
authorities. A federal judge has since issued a temporary
injunction against withholding
funds already appropriated by Congress.

But in April Sessions demanded from 10 state and local governments—sanctuary cities and urban
areas protective of diverse racial populations including Milwaukee County—proof
that they would share immigration-related information with the federal
government.

Such a sketchy,
questionable procedure understandably raised suspicions in the community and a
strong objection from Marisabel Cabrera, an immigration attorney on the
Commission, who called the changes both undemocratic and unnecessary because
the city was already in compliance with federal law.

Local officials
around the country maintain there’s nothing in federal law that requires police
to collect the citizenship status of those they encounter. And why should there
ever be? The only people who might think otherwise are misinformed right-wing
ditto heads who’ve been led to believe people living in the country who aren’t
citizens don’t deserve police protection.

That’s never been
true. America is just like other civilized nations. If we become victims of a
crime in another country, we expect to be able to go the police and receive
help. If we can’t, we know we are in a very bad, very corrupt country. Believe
it or not, our laws, legal protections and nearly all of the rights and
freedoms in our Constitution apply to everyone living in this country whether
they are citizens or not.

That’s the way it’s
always been in decent, civilized countries.

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Joel McNally is a national-award-winning newspaper columnist and a longtime political commentator on Milwaukee radio and television. Since 1997, Joel has written a column for the Shepherd Express where he also was editor for two years.

Comments (5)

US Republicans are part of US Russia-Gate....

Are all American Republicans Russian Spies helping...

Are all American Republicans Russian Spies helping Putin?

smoky tiger246 days ago

It is like this... I once heard of a Tennessee fir...

It is like this... I once heard of a Tennessee fire department who were present at a fire and watched the home burn down. The owner had not paid property taxes, this fire department were just making sure the fire did not spread to the homes that were not delinquent on taxes.I also learned this a long time ago in investigating a problem in the workplace:1) client said "it just broke" wanting replacement under warranty. We wanted to know how it broke for purposes of continuous improvement. If they put their foot through it by accident, it would tell us that there was nothing wrong with the design, we did not need to re-design it, We would have covered them anyway. But they refused to say for fear of not getting it covered for free.2) I get a lot more "honest truth" from my factory workers if they are confident I will not turn them in to management for their "dumb mistake". I can still use the honest truth of that "honest mistake" to re-engineer the process to be less prone to human mistakes.There is evidence that when a member of an "non-majority" demographic makes a 911 call and gets beaten by police instead of helped, that it tells all other members of that demographic to not make 911 calls, so it follows by hard statistics of fewer 911 calls in that community for several months after a single publicized incident of this.So police protection will be the same when "sanctuary cities" get their federal funding yanked away if they do not identify and turn in undocumented people discovered during any call to action... members of immigrant communities will no longer make 911 calls when a crime happens to them, even when from their own. That causes 2 problems in the community, 1) it gives the anti-immigrants (right-wing whites?) an "open season" on these immigrants. 2) it makes the "targeted" community arm themselves, and basically invites a "war to the death", with no police intervention.

WaukeshaGuy249 days ago

Just deport criminals, felons, unlicensed drivers ...

Just deport criminals, felons, unlicensed drivers and such. The rest we need to work for us. We should protect the ones who quietly live off the grid and provide cheap trouble free labor.

LOL! Can't have it both ways Dave....

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